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07.18.14

U.S.: Pro-Russia Rebels Shot MH17

Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters

The U.S. has completed its first initial intelligence estimate about what happened Thursday in the Ukraine skies. According to reports, the U.S. has determined it was shot down by an antiaircraft missile fired by pro-Russian separatists. According to the official, it was carried out using an SA-11 surface-to-air missile system, which is an earlier version of the Buk system identified by Ukrainian authorities. The official did stress, however, that the assessment is not final. The Ukrainian government also released recordings it claimed were from Russian intelligence officers that has them discussing the shooting down of a civilian airliner by mistake. Ukraine said on Friday that so far up to 181 bodies have been found. There were 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board the plane. Of the known passengers, 173 were Dutch, 44 Malaysian, 27 Australian, 12 Indonesian, nine British, four German, four Belgian, three Filipino, and one person each from Canada, New Zealand, and Romania. The crew were all Malaysian.